


autumn's deepest blue

by idyllicange



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Modern AU, Werebear Biology, this is way cuter than these tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyllicange/pseuds/idyllicange
Summary: Freddie always gets a little sadder when Bear gets ready for hibernation.
Relationships: Bear/Freddie (oc)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	autumn's deepest blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [george_squashington](https://archiveofourown.org/users/george_squashington/gifts).



> a commission for george_squashington on here/kesselins on tumblr & twitter, involving our ocs 
> 
> Bear, original character, belongs to me.  
> Freddie, original character, belongs to george_squashington/kesselins on tumblr & twitter  
> Wildemount, and all settings therein, belongs to matthew mercer/critical role

Bear is slowing down.

Freddie finds comfort in facts. Indisputable truths and laws of behavior that reduce the nebulous confusion and anxiety of accidentally doing or saying the wrong thing. So yes, Bear is slowing down. Freddie knows this for a fact.

It’s completely natural for Bear to be slowing down like this; it’s just his body’s circadian rhythm. Freddie knows this for a fact as well.

But neither of those facts grant him comfort. They loom above him like twin, impassable walls forming a channel where the only way out is through. He’s walked that path three times before, and he knows what it entails. It’s a doable path, but it is so, so lonely.

Freddie stands at the kitchen counter in their apartment, near the Firmaments but not quite, Rosohna’s eternal darkness made a little deeper by the late November evening. He dips the butter knife slowly into the peanut butter as he slathers the everything bagel Bear had requested. The tan cream glides onto the untoasted bread, and the professor wipes the knife off on the edge of the bagel round before opening up another jar of Nutella. This is what his late autumns always become; constant food prep and lecture preparation, before the apartment settles with deep snores that don’t end until springs first light. He hadn’t thought about the way ursinthropes would experience their winters prior to meeting Bear.

He hadn’t thought much of ursinthropy at all, to be frank.

But now, three years in, it’s a part of their relationship, even though it means their grocery budget fluctuates to near unhealthy amounts, just as Bear’s build and weight does over the course of the year. These fluctuations are _normal_ for Bear; he’s built to handle them. Yet the first time Freddie watched Bear’s body slowly thin out and waste away – a relative term, because Bear’s always going to be _big_ – will stay with him forever. It’s still uncomfortable, and his left arm itches a little in memory of others he’s seen fall apart.

It was almost him, for a time. But he shakes his head, physically shaking the past from the present. Instead, he focuses on other things, focusing on Bear now, healthy and strong and not at all a part of the world Freddie used to be stuck in.

He feels his body warm at the thought of Bear’s strength and build, the constant warmth he exudes, the safety and support he creates wherever he goes. There’s a sweet spot, between September and early November, when Bear’s nearly his biggest but still mentally clear, his mind not yet beginning to shut down for the winter.

Freddie aches, a little bit, for those late summer and early autumn days, but he knows they’ll come again.

Bear is governed by his natural rhythms moreso than non-therianthropes, but that same grounding dependability lessened Freddie’s anxiety over the years. This too shall pass, and all things that once were will come back again. For every winter, there’s another spring. Bear will hibernate, but he will wake up again. These are facts, each and every one.

He finishes off the Nutella side of the bagel and smushes the sandwich together, replacing the cap on the jar afterwards. Licking at the chocolate smeared on his knuckles, he adds the bagel to the oversized dinnerplate he’s currently working with.

The plate is an affront to the food pyramid: sliced strawberries (out of season, but Bear likes them anyway) roasted brussels sprouts with bacon, two tuna steaks (the smell made Freddie’s nose wrinkle), five hardboiled eggs with siracha, three pieces of toast, and now the PBN bagel.

It’s an atrocity.

Freddie picks up the plate and takes it over to the living room. His boyfriend lounges on the couch, the TV on low to accommodate for their exceptional hearing.

Bear takes up most of the length of their sectional, brown roots and blond ends thrown halfway up the back of the couch. His 6’8” form is finally at rest, eyes lidded and _almost_ there, _just_ at the verge of sleep. He’s in just joggers and a t-shirt, the same outfit he’s going to probably spend the next four months in. It’s a far cry from the suits and druidic clothing Bear normally goes to work in, but work knows not to expect him for the next couple months.

“ _Bär_ ,” he murmurs, the Zemnian word close enough to Bear’s name that even if Freddie tries to pronounce it in Common, it comes out Zemnian regardless. He sets the food down on the coffee table, with a fork as more of a suggestion than an actual requirement. He’s seen Bear eat crab dip with a slice of pizza as the cracker of choice – anything is possible.

Bear tears his eyes from the TV, hazel made slightly more green with age, and gives Freddie a warm smile. “’S that for me?”

His voice is deeper than usual, and Freddie abruptly realizes that Bear had probably been trancing with his eyes open again.

“ _Ja,_ you know…one last meal, just a little bit.” He steps closer to Bear’s head, reaching down and running his fingers through the shorter hairs by Bear’s forehead, the last touch up his far too-long mullet will receive before it all grows out while he’s asleep. Freddie kind of looks forward to it, though he knows the mullet is something that’s all Bear, and isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

Bear leans into the touches, and sits up, eyes closed. He can’t truly purr, not in this form, but he does make a very pleased hum that vibrates up Freddie’s arm and into his heart.

“Eat, _Bär_. I’ll be right here.” He sits in the spot Bear’s head had previously been in, curling up with a pillow in his lap. Bear pouts a little at the lack of head scritches, but does turn to the plate of food.

He digs right in, not bothering with the fork, just as Freddie suspected. As Bear tucks into the food, Freddie hugs the tasseled pillow to his chest, looking back at the TV. The commercial is in Undercommon, which by now Freddie’s picked up bits and pieces of, but the content is clear enough.

A drow couple holds hands on a night stroll along the beaches of Palma Flora, taking advantage of the darkness avoid direct sun exposure, silver hair reflecting the moonlight. A phone number flashes on the bottom of the screen, one for a travel agency Freddie’s heard about from other professors at Rosohna Tech. It’s advertising deals for winter travel, subtly reminding Xhorhasians to start planning their Winter’s Crest holidays now.

But Freddie knows winter is hurricane season for the Menagerie Coast. And that while the mainland may be fine, the beaches they advertise are going to be rain soaked and windy. It’ll be warmer, but the grass is usually not greener on the other side.

Sure, it would be great to have a partner who wasn’t catatonic for a quarter of the year. It would be delightful to have a partner who didn’t nearly eat them out of house and home every week. And, in Freddie’s darkest, most selfish moments, he thinks it would be wonderful to have a partner who at least _tried_ to fight against their biological restrictions.

But, as Freddie always reminds himself with a vicious quickness, Bear’s wonderful in other ways. Remaining in one spot for the entire winter means Freddie doesn’t have to worry about Bear getting into trouble when he’s stuck in the classroom for hours on end. And it means that Freddie always as a warm bed to come back to, and a cozy mate who will hold him tight when the memories of far harsher winters come for him. Bear has a heart of gold, and he gives his whole heart to everything he possibly can. He might not understand Freddie’s notes about quantum continuums and how perhaps raw quantum vibrations explain the inconsistencies in reality found all along the Blightshore, but he’s going to at least nod and _try_ to get it.

And maybe that’s what Freddie will miss the most. The _trying_. The _earnest_ look whenever Freddie says something beyond Bear’s comprehension. The warm hugs, sincere support, and by the _Dawn Father_ , the **_sex_** –

Bear pauses in his eating, looking at Freddie out of the corner of his eye. He’s nearly finished the plate during the time Freddie’s been thinking, just the strawberries left between thick fingers.

Freddie blushes.

Bear sniffs the air and Freddie blushes _more._

“…Oh _really_ now?” Bear doesn’t say it with judgement, only a cocksure attitude that occasionally reads as fuckboy lawyer, but doesn’t turn Freddie off in the slightest.

He blushes more, grumbling under his breath. “Oh, I hate it when you do that.” 

Bear chuckles, and pops the remaining strawberries into his mouth, stems and all. “No you don’t,” he teases, standing and taking the empty plate into the kitchen.

He’s right. There’s nothing about Bear that Freddie hates; if anything, he hates that there’s nothing _about_ Bear to hate, because he’s such a good man and Freddie hardly deserves that much goodness.

He’s still balled up in the couch when Bear comes back, freshly washed hands gently petting over Freddie’s braided crown, still in place after a day of teaching. Bear wraps some of the brilliant red strands around his finger as he leans down, pressing a kiss to Freddie’s temple.

“C’mon.” He tugs ever so lightly at his mate’s hair, and Freddie tips his head back obediently. “I have enough in me for one more.”

“You sure?” Freddie’s eyes blink open, looking upside down at Bear. Blond hair forms a curtain between their faces, and Bear gives him a smirk that’s got just enough fangs in it to make Freddie’s whole body flush.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Probably have a day or two left anyway.”

Freddie knows he should trust Bear’s own accounts of his personal cycles, but he’s still a little wary. “ _Bär_ , I don’t want to hurt you –”

“ ** _Baby_**. You won’t.” Bear kisses him, beard scratching at Freddie’s nose and poking at his nose ring a little, but it’s still warm and scratchy and still _Bear._

They separate, and Freddie nods softly. “W-well…if you’re sure…”

“Of course I’m sure.” Bear reaches down and picks Freddie up like he weighs nothing – which, Freddie’s reasonably sure, to Bear he doesn’t weigh much of anything – and carries him into the bedroom.

He deposits him onto their bed, an empire king bed almost comically large if Bear isn’t in it with him. Freddie settles into the duvet, reaching up to welcome his mate over him. “Well then, let me give you something nice to dream of, _ja_?”

Their laughter mingles together, cut short by the sweetest kiss.


End file.
